The Eyes of the Accused: A dark disturbing mystery thriller (The Ben Whittle Investigation Series Book 2)

by Mark Tilbury

  Chapter Nine

  Frank Crowley was looking forward to the evening. For starters, or main course to be precise, he was going to his mother’s for dinner, and she made a damned fine steak and kidney pudding. Secondly, he was in line for a bumper payday. Not a life-changing sum. Not enough to sun himself on a golden beach surrounded by topless woman. No, sir. But enough to tide him over until the Big One arrived.

  One day he’d find himself a wife who could cook as good as Mother. A girl who knew the way to a man’s heart was through his dinner plate. Mind you, it wouldn’t hurt him to lose a few pounds. Leave off the ready-meals and pizzas for a while.

  And the booze.

  Frank looked down at the beer belly sitting in his lap like an unwelcome pet. The doctor at the surgery had told him he was a breeding ground for type two diabetes. As far as Frank was concerned, the doctor was just trying to spook him with fancy words. The quack had also tried to scare him with tales of heart disease, dangerously high blood pressure and poor circulation. The swine was like a medical version of the bogyman.

  Question: Hey, Dumb Quack, I’ve got a bad back.

  That’s because you’re carrying too much weight, Frank. Have you ever considered giving up everything you love?

  Hey, Dumb Quack, I sawed off my finger at work.

  That’s because you’re a lard-arse, Frank. Try starving yourself to death for a few weeks. The bleeding will stop in no time.

  Frank took a Frank-shower: he peeled off his work-shirt and squirted Lynx deodorant under both arms. He looked in the mirror on his wardrobe door. His boobs were getting almost large enough to warrant a bra. All this extra weight was Dumb Quack’s fault in the first place for trying to get him to give up smoking. In the two months of pure hell which had accompanied abstention, Frank had compensated by snacking. The constant craving for nicotine had eventually driven him back to the weed. Yep. He was a failure. And a big fat failure to boot.

  ‘Soon as I get myself straight, I’m going to join a gym,’ Frank told his reflection.

  His reflection didn’t look impressed. Next you’ll be telling me you managed to get it up without looking at your dirty films!

  Frank shrugged. A man needed stimulation. Especially one who worked himself to the bone to make ends meet. But not for much longer. No, sir. Francis Arthur Crowley was on the verge of becoming a very wealthy man. He’d soon be able to leave this shit-shack and buy himself a nice little place down by the seaside. A guesthouse that offered endless opportunities. He’d watched a film once, where some dude had installed cameras in all the guest rooms to facilitate his urge to watch people going about their private business. The name of the film escaped him, but the sentiment didn’t. He got as horny as a rutting stag just thinking about it.

  He put a shirt on before his physique spoiled his good mood. A nice black baggy one so Mother didn’t notice his weight and peck away at him like a chicken in a farmyard. Just because she made a broom handle look porky didn’t mean she had the right to be so damned sanctimonious. Sometimes Frank felt like wrapping his hands around her scrawny neck and throttling the life out of her. But he had bigger and better things to do than waste time delivering his mother into the arms of Jesus.

  He buttoned up his shirt and grinned. For once in his life, the salmon were swimming upstream, and he was waiting with a dirty great net to haul ‘em in. He turned sideways and studied his belly in the mirror. Who said black was flattering? He still looked as if he was carrying twins. He lit a Marlboro and sucked smoke deep into his lungs. Maybe the nicotine would neutralise the fat.

  He splashed Brut on his stubbly cheeks. He wasn’t going to shave and then go out in the cold. He had sensitive skin and his face would look like it had fallen victim to nappy rash. He squeezed into the only pair of jeans that still fitted him. He consoled himself with the fact that he’d soon be able to treat himself to a whole new wardrobe. Coupled with his future gym membership, Frank would be a new man come the New Year.

  He smoked the cigarette down to its filter and dropped the butt into an empty beer can. There was nothing like money to lift the spirits. You could forget all that health and happiness crap; wealth put a smile on a man’s face and a spring in his step. Tonight’s payday wouldn’t be enough to keep him out of the bargain bins, but it would at least go some way to buying him some new threads. And keep him well-stocked with Special Brew. And maybe a few tubs of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.

  Dumb Quack will be pleased.

  Dumb Quack could take a hike in the hills. A man needed something to ease all the stress and worry snapping at his heels. He took a pot of Brylcreem off his dressing table and applied a liberal dollop to his thinning hair. As soon as he had the Big Bucks, he would get himself a hair transplant. It was amazing how good those things were nowadays. Mother wouldn’t be able to recognise him. She’d probably choke on her own tongue if he turned up on her doorstep with a fully thatched roof.

  Here was the question that was burning a dirty great hole in Frank’s brain: how much money should he ask for? Fifty grand? A hundred? It was all a matter of supply and demand. How much someone was willing to pay. Considering the Target had a rather nice house, you had to be talking six figures. And that was being generous.

  He moved away from the wardrobe and wiped condensation from the single-glazed window. It was a wonder he hadn’t died from pneumonia living in this tin-tub. He’d still be living with Mother if his smart-arse brother hadn’t poked his nose in. It was all right for him, with his posh house and Barbie-doll wife. Rattling on about Mother needing to take it easy at her time of life. What sort of nonsense was that when you hitched it up to a handcart? Mother had only just turned sixty when they’d conspired to throw him out of home ten years ago.

  Perhaps throw him out was a slight exaggeration. They’d clubbed together and bought Frank the mobile home. Their kindness knew no bounds. But here was the burning question: would Brother Ronnie and Barbie Doll want to live in this freezing cold caravan? No, sir. Not in a month of Sundays. Brother Ronnie and Barbie wouldn’t even house their stupid Westland Terrier in Frank’s so-called home. That bloody thing ate better than him, slept better than him and pissed up lampposts better than him. But every dog had its day, and Frank’s day was coming.

  He put on his dark green parka with the fur-rimmed hood and zipped it right up to his chin. He checked that his cigarette was extinguished in the can before leaving. He also checked twice that the place was locked before he walked to the car. You couldn’t be too careful when you had everything to live for. And, for once in his miserable life, Frank did.

  Unlike the past twenty years which had followed the Incident. It was as plain as a plum that Ronnie had poisoned Mother’s mind after that dreadful event. It seemed to have little bearing on the gossip and hearsay surrounding the case that Frank couldn’t remember a thing about flashing to the bloody schoolgirl. Mother hadn’t spoken to him for the best part of a year. He’d lost his job as an MOT tester at the local garage. Crap job and crap pay, but that wasn’t the point, was it? Condemned and marked down as a pervert for one stupid lapse.

  Even his temporary abstention from booze did little to soften the blow as far as Mother was concerned. He sometimes felt her eyes following him around the house as if he was some kind of monster that couldn’t be trusted. What did she think? He was going to pounce on her bony carcass? Whip his thing out and show it to her? Jesus!

  He’d even attempted suicide on two occasions. The first time was about two weeks after his mother and Brother Ronnie had told him he would have to move out. Frank couldn’t see for the life of him why. It was over ten years since the Incident.

  ‘Coz you need to stand on your own two feet,’ his mother had said. ‘Straighten your spine.’

  Frank had tried to argue that he had a job. Paid her keep money. Fetched the coal in during winter. Mowed the grass. Helped with the dishes.

  Brother Ronnie had told him it was already decided. Mother wasn’t getting any younger. Sh
e needed to take it easy at her time of life. Not walk around picking up his dirty socks off the floor.

  Frank had walked out of the house and slammed the door behind him. Faced with what he believed to be a dire existence on the streets in the middle of winter, he’d parked his car in a back alley and attached a garden hose to the exhaust pipe. He’d then fed the other end through the front passenger window and tightened it just enough to pinch it in place without choking off the deadly gas.

  Frank wasn’t a man usually given to theatrical displays of emotion, but he’d sat behind the wheel of his old Vauxhall Cavalier and blubbed like a baby. Cried solidly for almost an hour. Then he’d reached down and held the ignition key between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Merry Christmas, Mother.’

  He’d turned the key to bring life to the car and death to himself. Nothing. Just an empty clunk. He’d gawked at the dashboard and twisted the key again. Another hollow clunk. The damned battery was as flat as leftover beer. Frank had laughed. A nervous laugh laced with a good measure of hysteria. Maybe it was a sign. A sign he wasn’t meant to give up because of a few false allegations.

  False?

  Exaggerated.

  Whatever you want to believe, Frankie-boy.

  He didn’t believe in God, but something was looking out for him. And here was the really strange thing. The thing that made him wonder if all that church hocus-pocus didn’t have some merit. That car had started up the next day, right as rain. Or right as rust if you wanted a more accurate description.

  The second suicide attempt had been a better effort. He’d swallowed fifteen paracetamol tablets along with half a bottle of scotch. Maybe enough to kill him, maybe not. Frank would never know. He’d been violently sick.

  Those days were now well and truly behind him. He had everything to live for. Yes, sir. He was on his way to the top. He backed his Mondeo out of the parking bay and headed off to collect his money from the Drop Zone.

  He parked a few yards away from the house and walked to the target area. Fourwinds Cottage. Which was really a bungalow. How dumb was that? As dumb as calling a ship the Flying Scotsman.

  Frank’s bungalow.

  That sounded much better. More in line with the truth.

  Frank’s pad.

  Frank’s mind leaned back in a soft leather armchair and sparked up a cigar. Frank’s Pad. He liked that. Liked it a lot. It made him imagine a woman in a chambermaid’s outfit, feeding grapes into his mouth and dirty promises into his ear.

  The money was in its designated place, wrapped in newspaper and hidden inside a dustbin. He resisted an urge to unwrap it and count it out right there and then, but the freezing cold weather made him resort to the dangerous territory of trust. He’d have plenty of time to count it later.

  By the time he reached his mother’s small terraced home, he was ravenous. The money was tucked away inside his coat. He would deposit it upstairs in his old room after dinner.

  Agnes Crowley opened the front door and looked Frank up and down. She shook her head. ‘You’re late.’

  ‘I had things to do. I got here as quick as I could.’

  ‘You’re a single man. You don’t have nothing to do but get drunk.’

  Frank opted for a lie. ‘I don’t get drunk.’

  ‘And rabbits don’t live in burrows.’

  ‘Are you going to let me in or just stand there insulting me?’

  Agnes stepped aside and offered Frank her cheek.

  He planted an awkward kiss on her leathery skin. He noticed whiskers sprouting from her chin, and one nasty strand growing like a vine around a mole on her cheek. Frank knew better than to offer any grooming advice to his mother.

  ‘Hang your coat up and go through.’

  He hung his coat up on a row of pegs, careful to make sure the pocket containing the money faced the wall. He then followed his mother into the kitchen. He took a seat at a battered pine table. What was once his father’s seat. The old man was long gone, having jumped ship with some trollop from the Working Man’s Club when Frank was twelve years old. Frank only had his mother’s word for it that she was a trollop, but gone was gone, and Frank had never seen him again from that day to this.

  He sniffed the air. ‘If I’m not mistaken, that’s steak and kidney pudding I can smell.’

  Agnes ignored the compliment. ‘Wash your hands.’

  Frank did. The wash basin in the downstairs loo was filthy. It was probably more hygienic to eat with dirty hands. Frank noticed a nasty smear of shit around the rim of the toilet. It all but killed his appetite. He looked out the window on his way back to the kitchen and checked his car. This wasn’t the worst neighbourhood in town, but it had its fair share of brats waiting to let your tyres down or smash a window. It paid to keep an eye on things.

  Agnes dished up an unhealthy dollop of steak and kidney pudding on Frank’s plate, and then added a large splodge of mashed potatoes and some tinned carrots. She topped it off with a jug of gravy. Proper Oxo gravy thickened with Bisto, not that instant crap they sold in the supermarket. Say what you liked about Mother, and Frank often did in the privacy of his own home, but she was a damned fine cook.

  He tucked in and savoured the tastes and textures of real food. So good compared to his usual diet of pizza and microwave meals. Agnes fiddled with her food. She settled on a small piece of carrot which she forked into her mouth and chewed methodically.

  Frank noticed that her clothes were hanging off her; they looked like rags on a corpse. ‘How are you keeping, Mother?’

  ‘What do you care?’

  Frank found a piece of gristle in his mouth. He pretended to cough and spat it into his hand. ‘You know I care.’

  ‘You care about coming here and feeding your face once a week. I know that much.’

  Frank dropped the gristle on the floor. ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘Ronnie comes round every weekend. And some nights when he ain’t too busy at work.’

  Busy ripping people off, Frank thought. ‘That’s nice of him.’

  ‘I wish you were more like him. Had a normal life. A good woman. Settled down.’

  Frank ignored her. He ate his dinner and tried not to rise to the bait. His mother seemed to think that being a solicitor made Ronnie some kind of hero. A man of the people. As far as Frank was concerned, solicitors just made money off other people’s bad luck and misery. ‘I’m happy enough.’

  ‘He’s got a nice house, a good job and a lovely wife.’

  Pretentious arsehole, Frank thought. And as for his stupid wife, she looks more plastic than a carrier bag.

  ‘Holidays abroad.’

  ‘I don’t like foreign countries – full of foreigners,’ Frank joked.

  Agnes didn’t laugh. ‘That’s your trouble, boy: no ambition. You’ve been like that since you learned to wipe your own backside.’

  Frank thought about the downstairs loo. At least I can still remember how to wipe my own backside. ‘I’m happy enough. I’ve got my job. I’ve got my home.’

  Agnes snorted. A bogey flew from her nose and landed in her half-eaten dinner. ‘You call that tin-shack a home?’

  Frank almost gagged. He prayed with all his heart she didn’t fork the disgusting thing into her mouth. He felt like reminding his mother that it was her idea to ship him out to the mobile home in the first place. Hers and that sugar-coated brother of his.

  ‘You need a woman.’

  Frank almost told her he had one. But that would only raise questions that he didn’t care to answer. ‘I manage.’

  ‘Scrape by.’

  Frank pushed his plate away. The fallen bogey had chased his appetite out of the building. ‘I’m stuffed.’

  ‘You won’t be wanting pudding, then?’

  ‘Can I take it home with me?’

  Agnes didn’t look impressed. ‘And ruin it by heating it up in that damned microwave?’

  ‘The microwave won’t ruin it.’

  She snorted again. Thankfully, this time, bogey-free.
‘All this modern rubbish ain’t done nothing but put people in a hurry.’

  Frank failed to see the logic, but she was right to a point; he was in a hurry; to get his latest wedge of money secreted upstairs in the Den. ‘People are just busier these days.’

  ‘Busy, my eye – impatient, more like. Do you want a cup of tea?’

  ‘I’ll have one in a minute. I need to go up to my room.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Nothing in particular. I want to check something.’

  ‘What have you got up there, boy? What you hiding?’

  Frank’s heart lost its rhythm. For a nasty moment, he thought she might be able to see inside his head, right the way through to his darkest secrets. ‘I ain’t got nothing up there.’

  ‘Don’t shame yourself by treating me like I’m stupid. I raised you. I know that sneaky look when I see it.’

  Frank tried to smile. It felt more like a leer. ‘I know you’re not stupid.’

  She knows you’ve got something up there. Knows it as sure as she knows your name.

  Frank scraped back his chair. ‘I won’t be long.’

  He hurried into the hall and took the money out of his parka pocket. He then ran upstairs as fast as his bulky frame could carry him. His room was the last doorway on the landing next to what used to be the bathroom. Mother didn’t use it anymore. The bathroom was full of boxes and discarded junk. She claimed to strip-wash, but Frank didn’t believe her. She whiffed of piss and burnt toast. He didn’t dare contemplate what the burnt toast smell was; suffice to say, it was probably linked to her toiletry needs.

  He fished in the pocket of his jeans and took out a large silver key. He looked over his shoulder before putting the key into the lock; just in case Mother had somehow peeled back the years and snuck up the stairs behind him.

  Frank’s future was in this room. His Golden Egg. His payday. His every-dog-has-its-day-day.

  Chapter Ten

  Maddie walked into her bedroom at just after midday on Sunday. She sat down on a pink cushioned stool in front of her pine dressing table. A small wooden cross lay on the dresser next to a photo of her mother in a tarnished silver frame. The cross had been gifted to her by a young African girl when she’d visited Rwanda with her father ten years ago.